Hi,does anyone know if the current single layer burners will be able to use the dual layer media? I mean only the one layer of course.Or what will happen is that when the dual layer burners will come out,single layer media will start disappearing from commerce,so we ll be FORCED to buy a new dual layer burner?

Originally posted by BQuick Hi,does anyone know if the current single layer burners will be able to use the dual layer media? I mean only the one layer of course.Or what will happen is that when the dual layer burners will come out,single layer media will start disappearing from commerce,so we ll be FORCED to buy a new dual layer burner?

i think SL burner will be able only to read dvd+r DL disks, not to write them

I'm with Jamos. Whilst there will be DVD+R DL dual layer writers available within the next few weeks and months, I don't think the technology will hit the mainstream just yet.

Especially at first, the media will be in very limited supply and expensive. Over time, prices will come down, and speeds will increase (it seems near certain that the first dual layer stuff will write both layers at 2.4x).

It seems that the dual layer writers will command at most a small premium over their single layer cousins - I expect, before long, all writers will have DVD+R DL support, in much the same way as it's now getting pretty hard to find a writer that's not dual format (that is, that writes both DVD dash and DVD-plus formats).

I'm happy to leave the early dual layer stuff to others. Single layer meets most of my needs - I'm not using DVD for movie work anyway. By the time I'm thinking of a new drive, I expect dual layer will be standard on all DVD writers and any problems with the first generation of writeable dual layer should be history.

Some will, my NEC2500 can burn Dual Layer DVD Media after a hacked firmware update i did yesterday, it is now reconized as a NEC2510 and can burn DL dvd's. It has even been tested already, and seems to be working.

Why does everyone keep saying "my NEC 2500A will be able to burn DL media!" :rolleyes:

ONE successful test does NOT mean that this is something that would be successful for people! Recall that Philips said that its existing burners can't be upgraded to DL because only a select few of them will have components that are within the tighter tolerances. Philips gave some huge number, like 70%, for the amount that will NOT make the upgrade. Whether or not that number is accurate and whether or not that number would be as high for the NEC are all very open questions. It might be, if luck is willing, that all 2500A drives can be upped to DL successfully. But more likely, only a percentage of them can make the transition, and until we get more data points than just one test, people should not be drawing these "it will work, and let's pin all of our hopes on this" conclusions!

Not to mention, this DL firmware that we see is likely an experimental test firmware. Who knows how things will be with the release firmware? What's to keep NEC from revising its release firmware now that it has seen the need to put in some additional form of protection against the conversion? If anything, this whole ridiculous ruckus that's been raised over this has done nothing but hurt the community as this is certainly something that will have caught NEC's attention, and who knows what they'll do in response.

It's been said over and over again by a number of people, including prominent members of the NEC community, that this is premature and is so far nothing more than just a curiosity! Why can't people take a cue from them and treat it as such?